The Kingdom, Power and Glory - Preface

Preface

We believe that most Christians who get to heaven will be seriously disappointed. If this shocks you, then this book is for you.

We have been serious students of the Bible for more than five decades of our marriage, and God has blessed us with numerous mentoring relationships with many of the great people of faith of our time. We have come to the sobering assessment, however, that the “Body of Christ” ostensibly isn’t really producing the results we should expect. Consider the following:

The divorce rate among Christians is no better than that of the secular world.*

Too many high profile leaders appear to stumble with disturbing regularity.

There are too few examples of those who really “walk the talk.”

People are weary of hearing extraordinary claims from ordinary lives.

Contemporary Christianity, thy name is compromise!

Despite the fact that we have always presumed a “high view” of inspiration, and have generally followed a very literal hermeneutic, we have been shocked to discover how many ways we have failed to appreciate the practical day-to-day need to become “overcomers” and to pursue requisite diligence regarding our inheritance. The emphasis on what Dietrich Bonhoeffer dubbed “cheap grace” – as it is widely taught today – has disseminated a casualness toward our commitments to our Savior, enjoying the security of our “get-out-of-hell-free card” with no real awareness of the coming events and how they will involve us after the Harpazo – the Rapture – and with little concern over the likelihood of intense disappointment when we do “get to heaven”!

We hope this study will prompt a serious reexamination of the explicit promises and imperatives of our Savior, and that it might facilitate the revival among Christians that we all so desperately desire.

We know that much of what we will be sharing within these pages will be quite controversial for many, and we again appeal to our trademark disclaimer: “Receive the Word with all openness of mind, yet search the Scriptures to prove whether these things be so!” (Acts 17:11).

And let us also remember: “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him” (Proverbs 18:13).